Mother charged with capital murder in stabbing death of 4-year-old daughter

HOUSTON – A mother is accused of stabbing her 4-year-old daughter to death on Father’s Day.

Harris County Sheriff’s Office District 5 deputies were called around 8:40 p.m. Sunday to the Timberwalk Apartments in the 5600 block of Timber Creek Place Drive in northwest Harris County for a welfare check. Investigators said the child's father and the child's aunt reported that 34-year-old Laquita Lewis might have hurt her daughter, Fredricka Allen.

Though Lewis did not appear, the details of the incident were read Monday in probable cause court. According to court documents, Lewis called and told the child's father and aunt that Fredricka was no longer living and she was in heaven. Lewis told them she stabbed Fredricka with a knife, court documents said.

"The father and aunt told the 911 dispatcher that the defendant told the father that their daughter was no longer alive and was in heaven. She told the father that she stabbed the complainant in the chest with a knife," a prosecutor said.

Deputies found Fredricka's body inside the apartment in the master bedroom with several stab wounds to the chest, court papers said.

Lewis was not in the apartment when the child was found, deputies said.

Investigators called it a "horrific scene."

Deputies said Lewis was taken to a hospital after she got into a traffic accident around 6 p.m. at I-10 and 610 north. While at the hospital, Lewis texted family members saying she’d hurt the little girl and she was sorry, investigators said.

According to court documents, Lewis admitted to investigators that she was the last one with her child.

Lewis was detained at the hospital.

It is unclear if she was trying to run.

Investigators said Lewis and the child's father got into an argument earlier in the day. It was not immediately known what started the argument or if the argument is what led to the stabbing.

"They had been arguing since Thursday, where he had to leave the house. That's how intense the argument had gotten," Fredricka's cousin, Randy Sample said.

According to court records, Lewis is on probation for a previous incident in which she threatened to kill a man. She pleaded guilty to a terroristic threat charge and was given 15 months probation that was set to end May 14, 2018.

"We just never knew that she would actually carry her threat out," Sample said.

Lewis was charged in November with the misdemeanor of making a terroristic threat for a Thanksgiving incident in which she brandished a knife at her 16-year-old son.

Sample said Lewis doesn't have custody of her three older children.

Lewis is now charged with capital murder of a child under 10 years old.

HCSO chaplains were asked to help family members and deputies at the scene.